Acceptance
This is the final piece in my concentration series focuses on the paranoia and anxiety that comes with the disease of Alzheimers.
For my final piece, I wanted to illustrate the process of me coming to terms with my biggest fear. To do this, I wanted to have a statue of my head with herons flying out of it. The herons represent the fear becoming something beautiful and finally leaving the hole its created in my mind.
Herons are also a very special animal to me because it was my Gong Gong's favorite animal. I remember as a little girl, seeing his "pet" Heron sit on the tree in his backyard. He named him Hercules and he was always so happy to see him when he dropped by. My grandfather had a stroke last year and suffered from Dementia during the time after. Eventually, he passed away. When I go back to visit his house, sometimes I see Hercules and some weird feeling tells me that's Gong Gong. For a very long time, I've wanted to honor him through my art using the symbol of the Heron and I figured this was the perfect piece to do it.
Below is a digital rough sketch of my idea, done on OneNote.
As you can notice, I planned on using a lot of bright colors to evoke feelings of peace within the viewer.
The Process
The Background
I started with the background. I took artist grade acrylic paint and mixed it with large amounts of gloss glaze medium. The gloss allowed me to get a nice shine, the ability to blend the colors, and an almost stain glass approach with the transparency. I strayed away from the colors I had originally mapped out and instead went with violet, turquoise, and yellow. Afterwards, I took a blue chalk pastel and sketched out the head. I decided to design it like a broken roman statue head. Very structural and almost cartoonish, in the sense that I was not going with realism. I sprayed this with a fixative so that I could take a little white paint and a lot of gloss glaze medium to create a sheer base count.
The Face
Next, I began to paint the head/statue. I decided to go with a grey scale color palette to contrast against the bright background. Also so because it represents the stone cold and cemented fears I struggled with and how I am breaking them down. The stone statue was like a cage of my fears that had been keeping me in for so long. Now that I've moved to acceptance, I can break through it.
I used artist grade acrylic paints and mixed it with gloss glaze medium to once again get the ability to layer and blend. I did multiple layers of the paint to create depth with the bone structure and shadows.
As the photos go on, you'll start to notice hints of color in the face. That is because, once the stone part was completed, I realized it contrasted too much against the background. There was nothing tying to two together and the piece felt disjointed. To fix this, I took three small pots of gloss glaze medium and mixed one with yellow, one with violet, and one with turquoise. I made sure that it was more gloss than paint so that it was very sheer and only a hint of color. Then, I layered these over certain areas of the face to add the colors of the background into the face, as if the stone was see through. I ended with this amazing stained glazed look that I love.
The Herons
Lastly, was the herons. This was the hardest part because I despise painting fur and feathers. I knew that I wanted these colors to be bolder than the background so they would stand out. I also knew I wanted it to be a more dramatic color palette than that of an actual heron's. Instead of sad greys and muted blues, I chose bright blues and yellows. I did this to showcase the spirit of Gong Gong that I wanted to capture in the image of the bird.
I started with a layer of these colors with a lot of gloss glaze medium. This allowed me to plot out which colors would go where.
Afterwards, I went in with very little gloss and blocked out sections of the bird. This made it look very cartoonish but created a base for the feathers. This made it so I didn't have to paint every single little feather, instead, I would create the illusion of it.
I mixed lighter and darker shades of each of the three main colors: dark blue, turquoise, and yellow. Then, with a thin and short square brush, I carefully stroked feathers onto the birds. I did this with gentle flicks of the brush to create curved lines across its body. I continued to do this with many layers and different shades until I felt it was enough.
The Background (Again)
After completing the head and the herons, something felt lacking in the background. After some thinking, I realized I wanted more controlled chaos in the background. The flurry of colors I originally intended to have was now a calm blend of colors.
To fix this, I went back in with a variety of tools. First, I took a small circle sponge and dipped it into one of the colors. With the yellow, for example, I dipped the sponge into the paint and smeared it onto the areas of the canvas that already had yellow. I did this with al the other colors. This created a rough and textured look to the piece. I also didn't use very much gloss which made the colors bolder, which I liked.
After it dried, I did the same thing but with the gloss. I went back into areas of the piece that had too much of one solid color and stained parts of it with the other colors. This allowed for more chaos and depth.
Lastly, I used chalk pastel. I took a blue chalk pastel and drew random continuous lines over the areas that had blue paint. I repeated this with he other colors. It added more sense of fun and excitement while creating some new textures and diversity. I also added small lines of pastel to the herons to incorporate them more into the background.
The Final Piece
